Self-publishing

• You want the satisfaction of seeing your book in print or online (though not in physical bookstores). Some writers just want to hold a copy of their book in their hands, and to say that they’ve reached their goal of writing a book. This is a perfectly admirable goal, and the easiest way to reach it is to self-publish.
• You’re an entrepreneur. If you approach your writing like a business and have a keen mind for marketing and business strategy, self-publishing is an area in which you can let those talents soar. See question #3, “What does it take to be successful at self-publishing?”
• You want control over your work. Traditionally-published authors often have no say over editorial changes, title, cover art, pricing, and marketing. If you self-publish, all of those decisions are yours to make. Bestselling author Barry Eisler turned down half a million dollars from St. Martin’s Press in order to self-publish the rest of his John Rain series. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Eisler said, “Because of my personality and business experience, I found it very frustrating to have to entrust business decisions to people whose thinking, work process and conclusions I don’t necessarily agree with or respect. I’ve had publishers make terrible decisions for my books. I found it painful and frustrating to have to live with those decisions. I find it much more satisfying to be responsible for and in charge of those decisions.” If you sense you would feel the same way as Eisler, self-publishing might be the way to go.
• You want to skip the slush pile. If you and others are very confident in your writing ability and if you have a great deal of marketing savvy and if you are willing to work extremely hard and if you are willing to invest your own money to hire professional help, then self-publishing may be a way to achieve a traditional publishing deal without going the route of query letters and rejection slips. But in order to do this you must first become an extremely successful self-published author, which is every bit as difficult as becoming a successful traditionally-published author. Most publishers and agents monitor the self-published bestseller lists, so if you can make it to the top, you may be able to translate that success into a traditional publishing deal.

Being rejected by agents and publishers is not a good reason to self-publish. The vast majority of the time, this means your novel is not yet ready for publication. Instead of rushing to self-publish after the first few rejections, spend some more time working on your craft. An exception to this rule would be if you are consistently getting positive feedback about the high quality of your work, but there just isn’t a market for it. Then you might consider taking matters into your own hands and self-publishing your work.